Edwards scandal idicts MSM and political bloggers

Saturday, August 09, 2008 by Dave Winer.

This morning two editorials one in the LA Times and the other in The Moderate Voice, a political blog, provide a fresh perspective on the Edwards scandal.

The story broke in the National Enquirer, months ago, long before the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, yet mainstream press and bloggers failed to carry the story and investigate further. So far the stories have only been about the failure of mainstream press, but bloggers failed too.

CNN interviewed the editor in chief of the Enquirer, David Perel, yesterday.

Tim Rutten, writing in the Times says that this will "dethrone" mainstream media and "signals the end of the era in which traditional media set the limits of acceptable political journalism."

Shaun Mullen, writing in The Moderate Voice says: "The mainstream media let us down yet again by failing to take seriously first rumors and then credible accounts of the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter affair."

Neither statement goes far enough.

The reports were out there, there was tentative coverage in MSM and blogs, but the story we all took the word of reputable sources over the disreputable Enquirer.

Dave Winer, 53, pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in Berkeley, California.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.